Old Indonesian landslide clip misrepresented as deadly mining disaster

"Rockfall in Mount Kuda. The information is 8 dead, 12 injured, and 10 still missing. May the deceased get the best place in the sight of God," reads the Indonesian-language caption to an Instagram video shared on May 31, 2025.

The video shows a rocky cliff collapsing while several people in the foreground run away.

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Screenshot of the false Instagram post, captured on June 8, 2025

The video circulated after a landslide at a limestone mine in Mount Kuda in Cirebon on May 30 that local media outlet bisnis.com reported killed 21 people and left four missing (archived link).

The company overseeing the mine was operating legally, but safety standards were lacking, according to West Java Governor Dedi Mulyadi, who said he had ordered its closure (archived link).

Similar posts purportedly showing the landslide were also shared on Facebook, TikTok and X.

The video, however, does not show the May 30 landslide.

A combination of reverse image searches using keyframes from the falsely shared video and keyword searches on Google led to the same footage published on June 20, 2023 by an Instagram account that shares information about West Java (archived link).

"These are the seconds before rockfall occurred in Mount Kuda, Bobos Village, Dukupuntang District, Cirebon Regency, on Monday (June 19, 2023). There were no fatalities in this incident," reads its Indonesian-language caption.

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Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and the video from June 2023 (right)

The footage was also used by local media outlet Tribun Jateng and Dutch digital media company KameraOne in June 2023 (archived here and here).

According to local media platform Kumparan, the landslide was caused by heavy rainfall and an undercutting mining method (archived link). No fatalities were recorded.

AFP has debunked other false claims that misrepresented old landslide footage here and here.